I currently have no dust collector in my shop. I recently purchased the March 2008 Wood magazine and they have rated some dust collectors. My local woodworking store stocks Delta, Steel City, and Jet. They recommend the Delta, Steel City, and Jet in that order (based on what they stock). I hope to invest in a dust collector sometime in the next 6-12 months. In the Wood magazine, one of the Penn State units received a fairly nice rating, but I have no knowledge of Penn State’s products or reputation. I’m leaning towards the Delta, but does anyone have any experience with a Penn State dust collector?

I sent an email to the editors of Wood magazine, criticiizing them on several aspects of their tests. In the first place, the title of their article stated that the tests were of dust collectors for the “home workshop”, yet all the dust collectors rated favorably were 2HP units designed for 4” ducted systems. If they had slanted their article toward the small free standing pro and semi-pro shops I would not have had any arguement.

Somehow I can’t see that a large 2HP dust collector and that bulky 4” ductwork is all that practical for the woodworker who must work in his basement or 1/2 of the garage. Two HP is electrically hungry, and the noise level was not even mentioned in their review. Also, the last thing I would want in my small space is to have to step over 4” hoses on the floor. In their testing, the only smaller unit, 1 1/2 HP, was given very low marks, they were obviously pushing 2 HP units on their readers.

A small home shop does not have to have high HP and 4” ductwork in order to efficiently remove dust & chips. Lower HP units, using 3” piping and 2 1/2” flexible hoses can still easily achieve the 3500 cfm necessary to suspend the dust in the air stream. Woodworking author Nick Engler covers the technical aspects of smaller systems very well: http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Archives/SS109/SS109_Dust_Collection.htm

Frankly, I have cancelled my subscription to Wood magazine. It’s my opinion that their reviews are driven by their advertisers.

Has anybody made their own dust collection system? I think GaryK is right in there are 3 or 4 elements put together. I’ve been milling this over in my head the last couple of days and wonder if anybody here has made their own.

-- "Checking for square? What madness is this! The cabinet is square because I will it to be so!" Jeremy Greiner LJ Topic#20953 2011 Feb 2

I just bought the Temp 142CX cyclone dust collector from Penn State Industries for my new 14 X 21 shop. It has a 2 HP motor, 220/110 and 2- 1/2 Micron canisters. These are on sale right now. Because of the good air flow and 1/2 Micron filters no air cleaner is required. Over kill, maybe. I am plannig on building a bigger shop down the road and you can have up to 12 drops and 30’ runs with this unit. Good luck on picking a unit for your shop.

I have the Delta 1.5hp. I love it. Much quieter than a shop vac. You can run it on 110volts. It comes standard with a 1 micron bag. A lot of the cheaper ones come with much larger micron ratings. Watch out for the larger micron ratings on cheaper units.

I have this Penn State dust collector & though I haven’t used it a ton yet (still getting set up) I have run it with my PM 2000 TS + DeWalt 734 planer & have been very pleased. Seems well made, 1 micron bags, nice robust steel impeller. My only complaint is the box was really beat to death by UPS, so much so the manual was actually missing when I opened the carton. Probably could have been packed better. Called Penn State & they faxed me a copy of the manual.

This is a 240 volt unit. I ran 10/3 w/grnd to an outlet for the collector, using a space made available from a hot tub I had removed, switching out the 50 amp breaker for a 30 amp.

I’ve heard a comment or two about “upgrades” etc. You’re right Gary, simple components really, but what are these upgrades? I understand the micro ratings and the metal can on the bottom vs. the bags. What other upgrades are there? Can all DC systems be fitted with remotes? What of the auto on feature?

I have been eyeballing the Steel City 1HP DC. It’s well made, runs on 110, and comes with a 1 micron bag and its priced decent @ around 200 bucks. http://www.steelcitytoolworks.com/products_tools.cfm?section=2&category=5&tool=65110 The 1.5HP is very similar feature wise but it costs almost twice as much but has 500 CFM more power. http://www.steelcitytoolworks.com/products_tools.cfm?section=2&category=5&tool=65200I too have a small 1 car garage shop and have been using a shop vac for DC but that doesn’t’ cut it. Any of the smaller DC’s will do the job as long as you don’t attach too much hose to them put them too far away from the machine your using or try to hook up more than one machine at a time to them. The real difference between them is operating db (noise level) and the bag it comes with. Some come with pretty high number (5 micron and above) bags and you have to pay extra for the 1 micron bag. The SC comes standard with a 1 micron. And Woodcraft sells a remote starter with a key fob style on/off switch for around 50 bucks for a cheap remote on/off solution.